Talk:God bless you

Linguistic Equivelants: Japanese

Is this consistent? In the rest, person B says the phrase when person A sneezes. Would a native speaker of Japanese say "excuse me" when *I* sneeze? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.36.43.84 (talk) 17:22, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Much like in Chinese culture, sneezes in Japan are not acknowledged by surrounding persons, and to do so—especially if the two people involved are strangers—would be considered awkward at best, and perhaps even rude.

As a further correction, it is a bit simplistic to consider the phrase shitsurēshimasu (しつれいします) to mean 'excuse me.' It has a much more severe connotation, and is really only used in instances where the speaker has done something considered socially unfit or rude—when interrupting a meeting by entering a room late, for example, or to excuse oneself from a gathering before it has adjourned. In other situations, such as when attempting to get someone's attention, sumimasen (すみません) would be far more appropriate.

—LemonSmints (talk) 14:56, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Origins: Needs References

I had always understood it to refer to the Pneumonic plague in C17. Can the current explanation either be supported or replaced with the correct one Jmackaerospace 06:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Heart stops

This non-wikified statement was removed from the end of the susperstitions section:

Per the statement of heart stoppage above: The heart is innervated by the tenth cranial nerve, the vagus nerve. Stimulation of this nerve - by way of baroreceptors (pressure sensors) in the large vessels of the neck and chest - causes the heart to slow down or stop momentarily and then resume normal function. This is normally accomplished by increasing the intrathoracic pressure -- that is, the pressure within the chest cavity. Activities which cause one to bear down (e.g., forceful coughing or sneezing) are most commonly responsible for minor changes in heart rhythm. These changes, of course, are so transient that most do not recognize there has been a heart rhythm change. All one needs to do to demonstrate this is to find a pulse (carotid in the neck or radial in the wrist), note the speed and rhythm and then take a breath and bear down while breath-holding for a moment. A definite slowing or momentary pause will be noted. Breath-holding should be merely a couple of seconds, not extended, for safety reasons.

I don't think it needs to be explained that there is a beat irregularity (briefly) during a sneeze; the statment was that the heart STOPS, and is actually borne of an archaeic belief that the heart pumped blood continuously (instead of beating periodically). The statement that the 'heart stops' doesn't make much sense nowadays because technically it stops beating every second or so, and promptly continues thereafter.   freshgavin TALK    03:11, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Removed

Yath removed this statement: Regardless of its origins, it is now used in English more as a reaction to a sneeze than a sort of blessing, and it is rarely used with intentional concern for a person's well-being. stating it sounded like a rant. *Shrugs*   freshgavin TALK    00:33, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

It may be a bit of a rant, but it seems applicable to me. The reason I navigated to this page in the first place was that I was curious about the term and it's implication in manners and courtesy. My observation was, as mentioned above, that the expression is used almost thoughtlessly and robotically (and is even expected in many cases) as the polite response to a sneeze. Other cultures/languages have similar expressions, e.g. Spanish, "Salud!" or German, "Gasundheit!", though they do not carry the religious connotation of "blessing." My main interest was in finding an appropriate English term to use instead of "bless you," which I personally don't feel comfortable using, merely because of the religious aspect. I find myself using, "Gasundheit," as it is generally understood, but would like to find an English term or phrase instead. In any case, I think the quoted section may be appropriate for the article. --Caen 01:52, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Removed this uncited statement by KitKatCrazy: In South African English, the phrase "Be blessed" is predominantly used. As a South African, I've certainly never heard this used. Nor can I find any reference to its use. --Gnomeza 18:20, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Golden Ass

The quotation from the Golden Ass and the whole ancient greek reference looks as a hoax to me. Can someone confirm by other sources? `'mikka (t) 18:56, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

• If you took the time to read the references, you'd see that it has already been confirmed. Thanks for checking first though.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  10:52, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
  • The article is about an English phrase "Bless you". The quotations in snopes (where they have probably been copied from) are translations of texts from greek or latin, and what was in the origin is not provided. Since it may well be an artifact of translation, it cannnot serve as a proof of early usage of the phrase. In particular, it looks like Golden Ass does not speak about sneezing at all. `'mikka (t) 19:50, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Common Mistake

I've removed the following wikicode:

Very often children may mistake the words "Bless You" to be "Bleshu" and when there is no explanation of bleshu, a child may often assume this to be mucous.

Followed by these references given in commented-out wikicode:

"I spent the first 10 years of my life thinking people were saying “Bleshu”. I’m serious. Say it fast. It sounds like “Bleshu”. No, really, it does." - http://evangelicalatheist.com/2005/10/18/god-bless-america/

"When I was five or six, I always thought that after somebody sneezed you were supposed to say Bleshu." - http://olympus-mons.com/1656/feed/

on the grounds that both references do not conform to Wikipedia's policy on verifiable references (they are apparently personal blogs) and the fact that discussion on such a rare misconception isn't very relevant to the article in the first place.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  03:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Something to add

It can be added that in Arabic (from Islamic belief) people say "Alhamdulillah" which means praise be to Allah (God) when you sneeze yourself. When another sneezes you say to them "Yarhamokallah."

Shawly that is the same thing? Esentaly it is a translation of Bless you? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.232.65.170 (talk) 08:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC).

Regarding bright lights or sunlight and sneezing

I had never heard of the idea that light reflecting off of the dust particles in the nasal cavity...would cause someone to sneeze. There are references, however, to the "photic sneeze reflex", an optically triggered response to bright lights resulting in sneezing. (see http://vision.about.com/od/opticsvisiontheory/f/sneezereflex.htm or google on "sneezing in sunlight" for dozens of other citations).

As an aside, I recall that, as a child, I thought it was a direct reaction the the change in the amount of vitamin D that occurs when skin is exposed to sunlight. I think that may have been my own conclusion, based on learning about the vitamin D production and observing that some people sneezed when they went into the sun. Ah, the logic of an 8-year old.  :-)138.163.0.42 16:10, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Fake Sources?

on 20 April 2007 "217.205.202.194" added the following:

Oxford University Biology Professor, Bindi Perkins suggests: When you need to sneeze, it helps to look at a brighter light or at the sun. Looking at a bright light or at the sun can direct light up into the nasal cavity which in-turn reflects light from the dust particles up into your cerebral membrane. It is here that the sneezing mechanism is triggered.

• According to Jamie Hay (2007):…

In his latest book, sneezing expert Justin Frankel (2007), speculates Flatulating, Burping and Sneezing all at the same time results in the sudden onset of death.

The last two sections are long gone. I'm yanking the first one today. There is a Jamie Hay who works for an electronics company, Splashpower [1], but the name is fairly common.

Justin Frankel, however, "is an American computer programmer best known for his work on the Winamp media player application and for inventing the Gnutella peer-to-peer system." The ONLY books bn.com comes up with for that name are by the same guy.

"Bindi Perkins" shows up in google under a whole bunch of "HOK" events. Our anonymous editor [2] worked on the HOK Sport + Venue + Event article before this one (but said nothing about "Perkins"), then later made a few odd edits to Bindi, starting with adding:

• Bindi (Belinda) Sheree Perkins, born in Australia but currently abiding in London, UK

Then a photo was added and quickly removed.

Clearly a vandal.

Mdbrownmsw 21:01, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess I should have posted here before I removed the Jamie Hay and Justin Frankel quotes, but after a bit of a search they seemed to be pretty obviously fake so I figured there wouldn't be any argument. I left a detailed note in my edit though. KPalicz 20:49, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

What about this one...

Another possible source for "bless you" (which comes out sounding as "blesh-yu" when pronounced quickly)is that it rhymed with "achoo" or "ashoo", and at the same time it had a pleasant meaning. A few other languages and local dialects have similar rhyming expressions. As an example, in the city of Mashhad, located in northeast section of Iran, a sneeze sounded like "hapishi!" and a common rhyming response to it was "pir shi!" which literally meant "get old", implying a prayer for long life.

Seems pretty unbelievable 128.100.48.224 19:20, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Spanish

In Spanish (Particularly in Spain) the appropriate response is "Jesús" (Jesus Christ), which means proven because the people believed that when you sneeze your soul go out of your body and when someone say "Jesús" your soul return to your body.

What does that even mean? --71.178.158.121 (talk) 21:17, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Geographical patterns of usage

It seems to me that the use of "Bless you" is more common in the US South (or perhaps the Bible Belt) than elsewhere in the US. It would be helpful to provide a map of the world with gradations indicating prevalence of use, if there have been any such studies. Tetsuo (talk) 18:37, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Trivial popular culture uses

Yes, the phrase undoubtedly appears in various TV shows, movies, songs, comic books, novels, musicals, newspaper columns, book reports, post cards to mom from summer camp, etc. However, Wikipedia is not a random collection of such references. - SummerPhD (talk) 04:27, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

    Bart: Well, if your soul is real, where is it?
Milhouse: [motions to his chest] It's kind of in here. And when you
          sneeze, that's your soul trying to escape. Saying "God bless
          you" crams it back in! [gestures up his nose] And when you
          die, it squirms out and flies away.

This quote from the Simpsons does not simply mention the phrase, the dialog is speaking specifically about the phrase and it's origin. I fail to see how this quote is a "trivial" use.

Lax4mike (talk) 19:03, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Dialog from a cartoon is not a reliable source, so the content of the quote is moot. Is the dialog notable in some way? Please review Wikipedia:POPCULTURE#Good_and_bad_popular_culture_references. #1 obviously does not apply and it fails #2 & 3 outright. Consider all of the times the Simpsons discuss God. Should we add all of those references? Clearly not. How is this different? - SummerPhD (talk) 04:37, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Ambiguous origin statement in summary

The summary (first part of the article) says, "The origin of this custom and its original purpose are unknown." The meaning of this statement is ambiguous. By "this custom", does it mean the saying of "God bless you", the adoption of foreign phrases, or the Spanish phrase for which no explanation was given? --Lance E Sloan (talk) 12:36, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Modern English didn't exist circa 1900-2000 years ago

I absolutely do not believe that during the first century AD people were already saying "Bless you!", because that is modern English, which hasn't existed until relatively recently. The opening paragraph should be changed to say that something EQUIVALENT to "Bless you!", but in ancient Latin, must have been spoken back then, something somewhat like "Benedicere tu!" (sorry, I don't know Latin, modern nor ancient, so I can't say exactly what would have been spoken then). 198.144.192.45 (talk) 02:52, 10 May 2014 (UTC) Twitter.Com/CalRobert (Robert Maas)

Is this good english?

In the beginning it says: "Many clergy, when blessing their congregants individually or use the phrase "God bless you"." It seems like it's missing a word or something.24.155.105.89 (talk) 02:34, 3 July 2016 (UTC) Went ahead and fixed it.Robinrobin (talk) 14:32, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

May G*d bless you.

The phrase 'bless you' is short for "May [God] bless you." Stjohn1970 (talk) 08:17, 10 May 2021 (UTC)